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Friday, June 28, 2013

Back at the beginning of this year, I decided to make S.R. her own quilt, and to turn her room into a bigger girl room. When I was pregnant with her, I made one for E, which you can see here at the end of his bed. I felt it was time she had her own "made by Mommy" quilt.

Her favorite color is purple, so I searched for several weeks to find the perfect combinations of fabrics. Riley Blake had a line called Dress Up Days, and S.R. and I both fell in love with the prints!

After seeing the Girl Inspired's Scallop Quilt, I knew that would be the perfect design for S.R.

I will have to say, this was a rather expensive quilt to put together. S.R. has a full size bed, so I had to purchase extra fabric. After all the blood, sweat and tears (yes, all three occurred), it was definitely worth the fuss.

I attempted to machine quilt it myself. However my machine messed up and the bobbin stitches were all loopy, so a very dear friend and I had to pick stitches for over 3 hours. Bless her! I decided to throw in the towel and send it off to be quilted. I'm so glad that I did. I love the end result. The flower stitching is a perfect match to this whimsical fabric.

I had a lucky find at Target the other day as well. They had this bed skirt marked 50% off. Just an FYI, purple really isn't "in" right now, so it was fairly difficult to find coordinates for this bedding. There is a lot of purple and pink, but not a whole lot of purple and orange.

The matching throw pillows were made with the ruching technique, and the puppy pillow was my first attempt at hand embroidery. Pillows are one of the easiest ways to really dress up an area!

The sheets were purchased at Walmart, and I was really excited that the polka dots matched the colors in her quilt!

I have two or three more things to finish up in the room...a valance, an art project and an accessory or two to add, and her bigger girl room will be complete!

Friday, June 14, 2013

Now that summer break is here, I decided it was time to reinstate the chore responsibilities for the kiddos. Last year, I made a chore list, and my intentions were to teach E and S.R. responsibility and the value of hard work, but my system was truly broken and our excitement for it lasted all of one week.

Expecting my kids to do the same things over and over again day after day was just expecting too much. I certainly don't do the same things day after day. We all need a little variety, right?

So to fix my broken system, I searched on line for age appropriate chores.

It's truly amazing what little ones can do...we really don't give them enough credit. If you check my Pinterest board, you can visit the sites where I found my ideas...

Thankfully this little project was mostly free to me. I had one sheet of magnet paper left. I printed the kids' pictures and the chores with the money value on them(in 25 cent increments). I had blue card stock, and cut it down to size and put the kids' pictures on top and made little button magnets to hold the bottom in place.

The paycheck pad is something made on publisher. I used Vistaprint to print the notepad. Once it arrived in the mail, I attached magnets to the back.

We are now on week three and still going strong. The kids get to pick some of the chores to do and I delegate some as well. Saturdays are for make up work because sometimes we are gone and they don't get the chance to really make any money those days.

It is amazing how much cleaner my house is now. If you haven't started making your kids do chores, you are truly missing out....and so are they!

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Summertime is in full swing around here, and boy are we busy! Between VBS, swim lessons, piano lessons(which start next week), play dates, and visiting family, there isn't a whole lot of crafting going on here lately.

I have been able to sneak in some cute little applique outfits for S.R. though:o)

She loves all of the new outfits that I have made her...thankfully!

For all of these shirts, I googled the images, and found the ones I felt would be easiest to stitch. I copied the images, pasted in Word, printed them out, and used them as the templates.

Super quick and easy.

Crab with coordinating shorts.

Anchor with coordinating skirt

Butterfly with coordinating shorts

Octopus

Watermelon (which will have coordinating skirt)...I found this idea on Pinterest. This one is my fave!

I have received permission from E to make him some shirts, so I will share those as soon as I get them made.